


Settling for Sofas

by OcarinaSmash



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Couch or sofa?, Crack, Gen, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OcarinaSmash/pseuds/OcarinaSmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever had a perfectly ordinary day, but you suddenly realize that you're a sofa?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling for Sofas

Jon was just about to carefully place his foot down on the icy path that would lead him to his post when it happened. There was no premonition, no blur, no sensation of falling asleep, no ominous bitter taste in his mouth, not even a pain in his head like one of his father's guardsmen had once complained about before making a scene by screaming insults about people that were long dead.

He was no longer plainly himself, engaged in the familiar and automatic act of putting one foot down after another. It was instead occurring to him that he was a black leather sofa tucked away in a corner of Castle Black's armory.

He had no eyes or ears, no arms or legs, no brain or heart. He knew himself to have slightly worn black leather, collected from some unimaginable creature, carefully covering some padding and his weirwood skeleton. He felt that he should try to fight this unnatural situation, to run away, or at the very least to scream for help. But despite also remembering himself as Jon Snow the human, he was Jon Snow the sofa, unable to speak or move.

As a little boy, he had listened with rapt attention to many of Old Nan's stories. Some of her more ludicrous tales involved changelings playing tricks on honest folks, but try as he might, he couldn't remember a single story where people were turned into inanimate objects. How was he suppose to transform back into himself? And how had he come to be in the armory? How did he even _know_ he was in the armory, without sight and touch and hearing at his disposal?

It seemed that some mysterious other senses were providing him with information. For example, he knew that the armory was unsurprisingly a bit damp for him (it sometimes seemed like every room in Castle Black was a bit damp). He was somehow aware of a strange burn on his right arm that wasn't on his own real human arm. He was pushed against a wall and tucked to the right of some shelving, probably the shelves containing armor and the smaller pieces of extra equipment owned by the Watch. He was wide enough to comfortably sit two adults, and strong enough to take in a lot of weight.

****

He had no awareness of how much time had passed since he had become a sofa. He had been frantically praying to both the old Gods of the forest and the God of the Seven, when someone that felt familiar decided to sit on him. Of course, his scream for help was inaudible and ignored, but he at least felt himself creak and groan a little under the added weight of whoever was now sitting on him. Jon wondered how long he could go on being a sofa before he would lose his mind.

He heard without hearing Sam ask someone beyond what limited awareness he possessed to hand him a different pair of boots. Jon didn't quite know what to make of the coincidence – what were the odds that he would run into someone he knew so closely? Did it mean anything? For the first time since becoming a sofa, Jon felt hopeful that there might be a way out. If anyone could somehow recognize him and find a way to transform him back, it would be clever Sam.

“These are a little worn, don't you think?” Sam asked what Jon could only assume was the armorer, “I don't do as much walking as some of the other recruits, but well...” he sounded a bit embarrassed (or at least Jon knew his voice would sound embarrassed if Jon had been capable of hearing it with ears).

He couldn't make out what reply Sam got, but he could feel him settling down deeper and removing his boots.

Much as he was usually only aware of his hair when it tickled his face or fell in his eyes, Jon could now dimly feel a tastefully gray and black striped cushion that had been thrown on the sofa – on him. It was this cushion that Sam was mildly fluffing... a most disconcerting sensation that he couldn't quite imagine happening to his real human body.

Have these always been there?” asked Sam.

Again, Jon could hear no answer, but a pair of extra boots suddenly landed on top of him, and he felt Sam proceed to remove his own boots. Sam wiggled a lot, making Jon sag and stretch in odd places.

“I don't remember seeing these cushions here before,” said Sam. “Do you know why someone would embroider ' _You know nothing_ ' on them? Is it an old Night's Watch motto?”

“I guess I'll have to research it,” mumbled Sam in answer to a reply that Jon could not feel.

Sam kicked away the old boots once he had unlaced them enough – they almost disappeared from Jon's strange sense of awareness – and picked up one of the newer boots. The sudden removal of the boot from his surface was another disconcerting sensation and Jon noticed with displeasure that some dirt now stained his surface.

Sam breathed heavily as he put on the new boots. Jon assumed that they were satisfactory, as Sam silently got up – leading Jon to sort of _spring_ back up and slowly lose the body heat that had temporarily warmed him. Sam grabbed the old boots and walked outside of the limits of his awareness.

Jon thought about the dirt left on him by the boot for awhile, but with no one sitting on him, it didn't move an inch and he quickly grew bored. A detached part of Jon observed that the absence of sensations and stimulus beyond just existing as a sofa was getting harder and harder to stand. He tried screaming again, with the same lack of success.

*****

Jon stilled another of his voiceless screams when he felt something rub against one of his four legs. Without climbing on top of him, Ghost layed down his head on a seat cushion and whimpered.

Jon tried voicelessly to convince Ghost to go get help. Even though Ghost was extremely attentive to even his unvoiced commands when Jon was a human, Ghost didn't seem to react at all to Jon as a sofa. Jon was still pathetically grateful for the company.

After a time, Ghost left, but the damp and wisps of air circulating in the armory conspired to make the fur Ghost had shed on him dance around on his surface. It distracted Jon from thoughts that he might never be quite sane again even if he did manage to transform back into himself.

*****

His foot completed the movement, coming down on the icy path. He stumbled, and fell face first in the snow, his muscles numb with relief. He was once again Jon Snow, a human being. Not a moment seemed to have passed since his transformation.

He would later go into the armory and find an empty corner where he had been a sofa. He would ask Sam about his boots, only to learn that Sam often changed them and couldn't remember if he ever sat down or not before changing them and why was he asking such strange questions in any case?

And always, he would discretely tap chairs and silently apologize before sitting down on anything, just in case, and he found himself sometimes waking up screaming from nightmares where his brothers and sisters and father were being devoured alive by thrones.


End file.
